Mini Mods - Inactive Users Email Reminders For 3.7.x

Inactive reminder emails. This mod was designed to send out a reminder to inactive members to try and win them back. Earlier versions of this plugin have had great success, and has been installed on 1000's of forums.

This mod is a revised version of my 3.6 modification.
Someone pointed out that I needed to make a new thread in the right forum for this.

***1.2.7 Update***
Fixed the \ in the message.
Changed the way the mails are processed to try and stop duplicates
Made the bounce management monitor ALL outgoing emails
Added more stats
Added bounced email messaage viewing with management options.
***1.2.7 Update***
This update includes built in support for bouncing emails. The script will automatically detect the bounced mail, mark it as bounced so the user is not to be contacted again so as to avoid spam, and then move that user into a seperate usergroup. This plugin is still in it's testing stages, but I have addressed the bugs mentioned previously regarding the emailing side of things.

This is important so keep reading
To install this plugin and take advantage of the bounced email features you are going to need to follow these instructions very carefully. I can not gaurentee that they will work to the letter as this will be based on each persons individual hosting settings.

Step 1: Pre Install
Before you touch this product you need to do the following

• Create an "inactive" usergroup
• Set up a "bounce to" email address
  Pick an email address that you want to use as your bounced email address. Im using "bounce@icora.co.uk". feel free to use whatever you wish.
• Add a email message filter
  This is the hard part. You need to set up a filter that will 'pipe' an email sent to the above email address.
  I am using Cpanel 11 and this is how i have mine set up:
  Rules: 'To' 'Equals' 'bounce@icora.co.uk'
  Actions: 'Pipe to program' with the setting: |/usr/local/bin/php /home/icora/public_html/forum/bounce.php
  This will depend entirely on your settings and structure so you may have to do a little research. It would be very helfull if people who have to use diferent configurations would post them on here.
• Go into vBulletin options, and find the options for 'Emails'. there is a setting asking you if you want to use '-f'. set this to yes.
• While still inn the email options set the 'Bounce Email Address' to your above address.

Step 2: Install
Remove all previous trace of this modification, and upload all the files in the "upload" folder to your base directory of the server.
Go into your product management section and add a new product. upload the XML file with overwrite selected.
Refresh your admin CP to load the new menu items. Just under the "users" group you will find an "Inactive Reminders" group. open that up and click on settings.
Play with these settings and options to suit for the most part. when you come down to the bounce settings you MUST use the same email address as the one you created above.
Set to active and save.

I must re-iterate that this version has not been widely tested, but the simulations i have ran have worked. I look forward to your feedback!


Features:

• Select the period of time before a user is considered inactive.
• Select how many emails to send to each inactive user per inactivity period
• Choose weather inactivity is based on members "Last Post" or their "Last Visit"
• Specify how often followup emails are sent
• Specify alternative emails to send to reduce repetition
• Keep a log of all inactive users contacted

Planned Updates:

• More detail in reports
• ...such as
• Which useres returned
• Effectivness stats
• Email validity

**1.2.1 Update***
Added more detail to the reports section. You can now see the email address, and quickly indicate which emails were invalid. You can link directly to that user to edit as you wish.
I have fixed some errors which have been crashing people's database. Please post any problems if you can.

**1.2.3 Update***
Fixed several problems with escaping strings
Stopped database errors locking up site
***

**1.2.4 Update***
Added a "From Email" so you can specify your own email address to send the reminders from.
Fixed potential bug for people who do not use the mail queue.

Anyone having problems with sending emails out too fast, and multiple emails being sent need to consider changing their email settings in vbulletin options.
People with emails going out too fast - edit Number of Emails to Send Per Batch to a lower amount
People with multiple emails sending - edit Use Mailqueue System to "Yes, with locking"
***

**1.2.5 Update***
Added more stats in the reports page, also added a "Send test email" option so users can test the functionality of the mod
***

**1.2.6 Update***
Identical to 1.2.5, however EzBounce support added.
***

**Opps Update***
Sorry i somehow managed to not include the file in the zip. My bad.
***

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

okay - i tihnk i have it. and i cant believe i missed this out. in the email options where you enabled the "-f" option, just above that there is a "Bounce Email Address". set this to your bounce email address.

I did. It just doesn't work.

One more thing: This is a confusing setup parameter. Your From email address in your own preference page shouldn't reflect the bounce email, but simply the one from which the reminder emanates. The bounce should always be regarded as the one set in the standard vBulletin settings under email.

Still getting the formatting crap.

Peace,
Gene

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Moparx

I tried to send myself a test email and received a Database Error.


The test Email still went through though.

which version of the mod are you using?

[RedPoint]

sorry Brithwaite,
i marked as uninstall - its for me to hard to make all the preinstall settings.

I need a addon/plugin that ist run over upload and install and not that i must sett files and more files to install that addon.

Regards and more success

[tekguru]

Posted to allow youto follow on from the other thread....

Okay just bitten the bullet and installed version 1.2.7 and hit two problems.

1) The product would not install into vB 3.7.2 PL2 until I adjusted the 'maxversion' to 3.7.3.

2) I have at the moment 33,378 users registered and the Mod decided that 29,727 users were inactive. This is with setting the inactive period to 90 days. That seems way too high a ratio?

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by RedPoint

sorry Brithwaite,
i marked as uninstall - its for me to hard to make all the preinstall settings.

I need a addon/plugin that ist run over upload and install and not that i must sett files and more files to install that addon.

Regards and more success

you can still use the mod without the settings, however you must be aware that the bouncing emails wont work. the inactive reminders still go out as normail

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by tekguru

Posted to allow youto follow on from the other thread....

ive checked over the code and im quite sure everything is as it should be.

[tekguru]

1) Now upgraded to the correct version. Seems to be working but even with period of inactivity set to 60 days still getting 27275 inactive users. Could be right I guess.

Could I ask you to clarify how the options work together?

- Inactivity period is obvious (Set to 60 days for me)

- How many emails maximum to send to each inactive user per inactive period. (0 for unlimited) - does this mean that if set to 3 then a user will get maximum of 3 emails after being inactive for 60 days? Then another 3 if inactive for 120 days?

- After the first email, how long should the system wait before sending out subsequent emails? (Days) This I have set to 28, but if max emails is set as above then this would clash with the above?

So could you clarify how we should set it please?

2) As per attached is the Mod working incredibly quickly to send emails (and possibly travelling in time), or is the Users that have been sent the maximum number of emails count incorrect?

3) As per the attached there seems to be a spurious table (zero height) just above the test email box?

[tekguru]

More......

- The report page is getting incredibly long (understandable) - it might be an idea to paginate it and allow one to filter it based on bounced users only. Also to be able to erase the table - thinking of data storage sizes here.

- If one does not wish to use the bounce change usergroup feature how does one turn that facility off as it only lists the usergroups, there is not an option for 'none'.

[tekguru]

More 2 .....

1) The message to be sent specififes:

<p>Kindest Regards<br/>
The $forumtitle Team
<a href="$homeurl">$bbtitle</a></p>

But translates into (from looking at the test message):

Kindest Regards
The Team 4WinMobile.com

So it looks like the '$forumtitle' variable is not being parsed?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by genesteinberg

As you wish. This is a typical set of headers from these bounced messages, showing the formatting problem and the incorrect sender address (minus the recipient's email):



I look forward to the update.

Peace,
Gene

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

From what I have read while doing my research this "nobody" problem is actually the settings on your forum. This issue should be fixed if and when you upgrade to the latest version.

No, it's a server configuration issue. Generally, files sent by a PHP script are sent from nobody@domain.com unless you configure the server to do otherwise.

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

Not as such - i've added my own automated real-time bounce management.

I think this is a step backwards, to be blunt. EZ Bounce works on all email sent out by the forum, such as notifications, etc. It would be far better to have an option to specifiy the EZ Bounce headers, or even just to set them automatically if the admin indicates that EZ Bounce is installed.

Why reinvent the wheel? Especially when you're trying to reinvent only half the wheel...

Originally Posted by tekguru

More......

- The report page is getting incredibly long (understandable) - it might be an idea to paginate it and allow one to filter it based on bounced users only. Also to be able to erase the table - thinking of data storage sizes here.

That's why the email notifications are a much better idea... no logs to delete or edit.